


Just This Once

by omnomeevee



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 13:54:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19427305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omnomeevee/pseuds/omnomeevee
Summary: You never know what a story is about until you reach the end.





	Just This Once

Seren sits on the couch with Mark, Johnny sitting on the opposite side of the room when Seren gets the notification.

_Jungwoo and Cordelia are now in a relationship._

She lets out a panicked noise, tossing her phone on the table. Mark looks over at her, then at her phone on the table. Soon, Johnny lets out a quiet “What the fuck?” from where he’s sitting. Seren and him shoot a look at one another and scramble to each other. They exchanged their phones and both panicked, look at a laughing Mark.

“Why are you laughing?” Seren spits out.

“What’s the big deal?” He laughs, fully aware of what’s truly going on.

“What do you mean what’s the big deal?” Johnny is now looking at Mark, shaking his head.

Mark shrugs, shaking his head back. “C’mon, they always were at each other's throats. They had to have had a crush on each other.”

“Oh no, no, no, that is not true Mark.” Seren got up to look at him better. “They _hate_ each other. I know this. This makes no sense.” Mark just shrugs again and they three of them settle back down a bit. When Mark drops Ren off later, he heads to Cordelia’s place before home.

“I can’t believe I have to be this close to you.” Jungwoo says as he grabs the large book next to him, in no particular way but it must have been wrong.

Cordelia snatches the book from him, smacking him with it as hard as she can on his shoulder. “Please treat my books better than you treat literally anything else I own.”

Mark walks in and sees Haechan cackling to himself on the floor. Cordelia is still hitting Woo with the book. Mark points in their direction. Haechan composes himself, looking at Mark. “They’ve been doing this for the past hour. I’ve gotten nothing out of them.”

“AYE!” Mark calls out at them, and they pop up like curious kittens. “This won’t work if you guys still fight all the time.” He laughs, sitting down.

“I have half a mind to back out of this.” Jungwoo glares at Cordelia, who draws back the book again, making Jungwoo scramble backwards to avoid her. “She likes hitting.” He points at her.

“Don’t act like you don’t enjoy someone who’s a bit rough.” Haechan smirks, Jungwoo shooting him a look, Haechan giving him what he thinks is a wink.

“It’s just until the party, it’s not that bad.” Mark ignores Donghyuck’s comment.

“That’s a whole week from now..” Jungwoo whines.

“I’m not too happy about this either but it’ll be fun to see their faces.” Cordelia sits back, still holding the book.

“You came up with this idea. You find pleasure in this. I, for one, do not.” Jungwoo looks at Mark. “Two, can we please take these pictures so I can go home?”

“Yeah, yeah, you two aren’t going to kill each other are you?” Mark grabs his phone, sitting in front of them.

“No promises.” Cordelia says as she scoots closer to Jungwoo, lifting the book to cover their faces. Jungwoo reluctantly puts his hand on the back cover of the book and they stare each other down as Mark snaps a few pictures.

“Can you guys move a bit closer? It doesn’t look quite right..” He mutters out.

“You really want me to get closer to her? I can see her pores from here. I don’t even like to be in the same room as her, let alone look at her face.” Jungwoo whines again, still holding the book with Cordelia.

“Oh Woo, She’s pretty. You can’t hate looking at her that much.” Haechan calls from behind Mark, smiling.

“See?” Cordelia throws the book down, looking at Haechan then back at Jungwoo. “Why can’t you be more like him?”

“I wouldn’t like him as much if he were more like me.” Haechan says, Jungwoo looks down to try and hide his smile.

“Can we just take this picture?” Mark speaks up, his head in his hand. Finally they all start to work together. Jungwoo and Cordelia exchange insults back and forth to ease their uncomfortable closeness as Haechan continues to laugh to himself. Mark is able to get a few good pictures that are at least somewhat convincing.

Mark swears Seren is going to jump out of the window and is concerned when he hears Johnny scream from his room when the picture is uploaded the night before the party. An instagram post that says “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover”. Mark stifles a laugh when Seren shows it to him. It was pretty good, if he said so himself. They looked like they were close enough to be kissing and he could hear how panicked Seren was.

“Seriously, have you talked to either of them?” She sits down, still staring at the photo.

“Not since the other day. They’re probably too busy with each other.”

“Stop, no, this is so out of character for them.”

“Well, we get to see them tomorrow. See how things go.” He kisses the back on Seren’s neck lightly. “C’mon, let’s go to sleep. We gotta set up in the morning.”

The tradition started out as a joke with the girls. Cordelia had said she was throwing a party and nobody caught on what day it was, so they all showed up. It had become something that every year for April fools, someone would throw the party. Since the boys were around, they got wrapped into the tradition. Taeyong and Mark offered the throw the party at their house. Johnny had no say but he didn’t mind it either.

When Seren and Mark finally came down stairs, Athena and Taeyong had already started decorating. They all helped one another as people slowly came in. Johnny had stopped at the store and bought an abundance of alcohol to keep everyone happy. Talk started to come up as more people got there. Haechan and Phoenix sat at the dining table together, filling each other in on their work gossip. They waited until Seren and Johnny were both in the kitchen to start up their next conversation.

“Did you see Cordelia and Jungwoo’s post?” Nix starts, glancing over at Seren and Johnny as they both scramble to try and hold on to the tray of food they are moving. Haechan tries not to laugh.

“I did. They're super cute. I’m glad they were able to set aside their differences.” Seren shoves the tray on to Johnny’s arms as she walks out of the room.

“Does everyone know about this already?” Johnny says, setting the tray down on the table by Nix and Chan. They both nod. Johnny shakes his head and grabs himself a bottle of beer and sulks in the chair in the living room. Seren does a head count and sees almost everyone is there, except Cordelia and Jungwoo.

The two of them are outside the door, bitching at each other about how they are going to walk into the house. “Just hold my fucking hand, this is the easy part. Do you think I want to kiss you?” Cordelia scoffs, grabbing his hand as he tenses.

“It’s only on my cheek. That’s not that bad.” Jungwoo grimaces at the feeling of her holding his hand. “Let’s get this over with.”

“With pleasure.” Cord says, opening the door. Cheers erupt from all but three people at the party. Jungwoo can feel his heart drop when he sets his eyes on Lucas, even though Ten had asked him before hand if it was okay to invite him. They hadn’t talked in ages and seeing him there brought a flood of emotions. He shakes his head and looks at a confused Seren, who is standing cross armed in front of them.

“Seriously?” She looks at the two of them.

Cordelia leans into Jungwoo, kissing his cheek and the look on Seren’s face makes Jungwoo feel less bad about his stomach feeling sick. “Of course!” Cordelia says, as she skips away.

Johnny stands next to Seren. “She’s absolutely lost it.” He mumbles. I made her absolutely lose it, he thinks.

Soon enough people started to drink and fall into their own little areas.

Kiara and Jaehyun are pestering each other, flirting even if they don’t quite realize it. Mark socializes with Haechan, WinWin, and Nix, who are all playing a small drinking game they must have come up with themselves. Yuta and Ten flip through music together, looking for something to dance to. Grace, Taeil, Taeyong, Athena, Lyn and Doyoung all are chilling around the coffee table, sipping on whatever drinks they have, alcoholic or not, playing a game of uno. Lucas longingly looks at Jungwoo and Cordelia, who are standing at the kitchen island, shoving each others shoulders. Seren and Johnny sit in the living room, staring around trying to process what is happening, clinking their drinks together as the shoot them back.

The evening lazily goes on as everyone starts to exchange in what activities they’re doing, until Kiara and Jaehyun suggest karaoke. A few different mixes go up. Kiara and Jaehyun start off, singing "You got a friend in me”. Haechan and Nix go up to funnily sing “Everytime we touch”, giving slight glances to two particular people in the room as they do. Grace and Athena go and jam out to “I write sins”. Jungwoo tried to drag Seren up to do it too, but she sat in a fuss and didn’t move. He gives up as Cordelia calls him over lovingly. He feels himself gag as she does.

They look at each other, having already planned what song to sing for their own reasons that nobody knows about. The song “shout out to my ex" comes through the speakers and they start jumping around, having a grand time exchanging lines back and forth. Cordelia belts out the line “I hope she’s getting better sex. Hope she ain't fakin’ like I did, babe,” as she scans the room with her finger, nonchalantly holding it towards Johnny for a second. Her and Jungwoo nearly scream “shout out to my ex” at each other, dancing around all happy. Seren finally breaks a small smile at them. Jungwoo then slows down and lock eyes with Lucas, keeping a straight face as he sings “But I snapped right back, I’m so brand new, baby. Boy read my lips, I’m over you”. He smiles to himself as Lucas turns away.

A few more people go up, but slowly it dies down. Mark hooks up his phone to play music and he lets a playlist run. A lot of the music is upbeat and everyone has started to dance in partners, in their own worlds. Mark curls up with Seren on the couch, being a bit clingy and far more affectionate than normal. Johnny sits sipping his drink until he spits it out. He nudges Seren as Cordelia and Jungwoo dance together, rather seductively to Side to Side. Jungwoo leans down to whisper in Cordelia’s ear. “I absolutely could have lived without ever doing this.” Seren pushes Mark away from her and he looks up, seeing what they're doing and starts laughing. Seren doesn’t even bother to address Cordelia.

“KIM JUNGWOO!” Seren pulls him aside, and can’t see Cordelia’s sigh of relief. “What is this? You literally can't STAND to be in the same room as her half the time I'm SO confused.” Mark is nearly on the floor clutching his stomach in laughter as Jungwoo let’s out a small laugh and looks at Haechan.

Heachan smiles, tipping his cup in the air. “April fools, Ren.” He smiles. Seren’s face drops, as Mark gets up. She glares at him.

“Oh, come here, you grump.” He put his arm around her shoulders.

Johnny takes a deep breath hearing the words April Fool’s, setting his head back and closing his eyes. Meanwhile Jungwoo and Cordelia go back to their normal selves.

“Don’t ever touch my ass again.” Cordelia eyes Jungwoo up and down.

“You don’t have to tell me twice.”

“Oh, like you hated it that much.”

“Honestly, I didn’t think I could find it, it’s so small.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” Cordelia says, turning around to smack her butt. “Like I know I’m great but don’t going falling in love with me now.”

“I’d never.” Jungwoo squints at her.

“Well funny you say that, because I’d never be interested.” She shoots back.

“Jokes on you, I’m gay.” Jungwoo shoots a smile and everyone stops what they’re doing.

Seren turns to him, mouthing the word “really”. When he nods, she runs to hug him. Everyone else is chattering around about it, until Haechan speaks up. “I could have told you that.” He gets up, taking Jungwoo’s hand and stands there. Seren takes him into a hug too.

The night dies down as people get a bit tired and start to drift to sleep. Kiara had curled next to Jaehyun a while ago. Grace and Taeil were at the kitchen table playing cards. Athena and Taeyong were cutely facing each other and talking, poking each others nose here and there. Johnny had cuddled up with a pillow on the couch. Lucas, Ten and Yuta had all headed home. Sicheng and Phoenix had fallen asleep on the floor, hands only barely touching as they faced each other. Mark and Seren were off in the corner of the couch, Seren curled into his chest, him playing aimlessly with her hair. Haechan, Lyn and Doyoung were all talking about the night, sharing jokes about everything that had happened. Jungwoo was rinsing out dishes when Cordelia came in and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Yeah?” He said as he turns back to the dishes.

“I’m glad you felt comfortable enough to come out.” She leaned on the counter. “Especially with me. I’ve never given you much reason to care about me knowing anything in your life.”

“It was a long time coming. I was ready. I needed to do it.” He nodded. “Now that things are going better.”

They both smiled before Cordelia socked him in the shoulder. “This doesn’t mean I hate you any less. You’re still a cocky asshole.”

“And your existence still gets on my nerves.” He says back.

Cordelia and Jungwoo delete the pictures off their instagrams but Cordelia adds the out takes on hers, with the caption “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, all of them can be used to beat up Jungwoo”.


End file.
